Her lecture is based on The Woman Who Defied Kings: The Life
and Times of Doña Gracia Nasi: A Jewish Leader during
the Renaissance (Paragon House, June 2002), her book about
a remarkable sixteenth-century woman banker that sheds fresh
light on women’s lives and
banking of that day, as well as relations between Jews and Muslims.

Brooks is a journalist, author, and lecturer whose interests
combine unusual aspects of Jewish history, issues related to
raising privileged
children, and
the broad landscape of women’s agency. She is an associate fellow at Yale
University, and the founder and first president of the Women’s Campaign
School at Yale–a project realized in the early 1990s to help more women
run for political offices.

Brooks contributed to the New York Times for 18 years. In addition to covering
such topics as personal finances and real estate, she wrote about the women’s
movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Brooks will be on campus March 30 and will be available to meet with members
of the MHC community for further discussion and conversation. Please contact
her at andreebrooks@hotmail.com.